• Among the hopefuls are holders Barcelona, who won their second title last season, 2017/18 semi-finalists Manchester City and Porto, and past runners-up Benfica, Paris Saint-Germain and Shakhtar Donetsk.

2: Domestic Champions path

The domestic youth champions of the 32 best-ranked associations in the 2017 UEFA association coefficient rankings (the same rankings used to decide access to the 2018/19 UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League).

• The draw for the two knockout rounds will be made in Nyon at 14:00CET on Tuesday 4 September, streamed live on UEFA.com.

• If a team was eligible for both, they entered the UEFA Champions League path.

• Two vacancies in the Domestic Champions path (because Atlético and Inter were also eligible for the UEFA Champions League path) were filled by the domestic youth champions of the next-best-ranked associations (namely Moldova and Iceland).

• Chelsea, who won this competition in both 2014/15 and 2015/16 yet lost last season's final to Barcelona, enter this path.

• Two-time semi-finalists Anderlecht extend their record of entering all six editions.

*Entered as Liechtenstein do not have qualifying youth league**Entered as Atlético and Inter qualified for UEFA Champions League automatically***Entered as Benfica, PSV and Crvena zvezda qualified for UEFA Champions League via play-offs

Competition system

UEFA Champions League pathThe 32 clubs entering via the UEFA Champions League will compete in groups with the indentical make-up and fixture list as the senior competition.

• The eight group winners will progress straight to the round of 16.

• The eight runners-up will go into the play-offs.

Domestic Champions pathThe 32 teams will compete in two knockout rounds of home-and-away ties. There will be no seeding.

• The eight teams left after the second round will go into the play-offs.

Play-offsThe eight Domestic Champions path survivors will be drawn at home to the eight UEFA Champions League path runners-up in one-off ties to decide the eight remaining round of 16 berths.

Knockout phase and finalThe knockout phase, starting with the round of 16, will consist of single-leg ties.

• The semi-finals and the final will be played on 26 and 29 April respectively at the Colovray stadium opposite UEFA's Swiss headquarters in Nyon.

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